Radio War Nerd EP #471 — Israel's Battery-Bombing Campaign

The Sri Lankan JVP, the Communist/Sinhala nationalist former rebel group covered in Ep. 211, just won the presidency in a free election. Any chance you could have a guest on to talk about this in an upcoming episode?

When this attack does nothing to the profitability of IT hardware marketing and manufacturing organizations , we are going to be reminded of just how much our financial system is based on our unshakable faith in completely fictional assumptions of value.

it's revisionist (not in a good way) history to claim that shell companies were first used by organized crime. First of all a corporation is in and of itself a shell company, thas why it has a corporate veil. As far as " who did it first"., it was wealthy investors, in the British slave trade. So elites, not organized crime.

The notion that bombing County A will cause the citizens of that country to attack their own governors is an artifact of 1920s era strategic bomber theory that was never true, so anybody believing that now is objectively insane

Did it not occur to Gary that perhaps Hezbollah was beginning to figure out the pagers had been tampered with. It would make perfect sense to use at that point.

A Technical Deep Dive into how one might turn batteries into bombs. https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2024/turning-everyday-gadgets-into-bombs-is-a-bad-idea/

Really excited you're getting Hogland back on, he's a great guest and it's been a really long time. Not directly related, but speaking of previous guests, could you get Philip Matyszak back on? He was definitely a top tier guest, and with how much he writes, I'm sure he has something new to talk about, too.

Does anyone have the link to the Medium article?

The one angle I believe John may have missed on the question of “why now” is Hezbollah growing wise to a threat from the pagers. Timing this attack with an offensive was surely the goal, but if the window of surprise was closing perhaps Israel chose to pursue a terror bombing

The triumphalism about this attack has been sick to watch. Just gross.

Could the attack have been a fuck up? It's not as though the Zionists began trumpeting "success" right away: https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/09/19/exploding-pagers-in-lebanon-another-israeli-terrorism-blunder/

Echoing mark and others in the comments- this was a terrorist attack; this is what it looks like when you are a country doing this and you have a budget

One angle of this that I find interesting is the economic fallout of this. I don't think countries like Taiwan, which have gotten by as manufacturing intermediate parts in long international supply chains, is going to be too keen on having Mossad agents using them in operations like this. It's brings a huge reputational risk, and or even boycotts as everyone in the muslim world suddenly starts linking them with all these civilian casualties. There are already stories floating around as China getting a flood of orders from people to replace their electronics, on the condition that they all be produced in country. I don't know how valid it is, but it certainly illustrates the issue. It's another example of Western satellites having their economy sabotaged in the interest of imperial games.

This reminds me a lot of when the U.S. did a bunch of cyberattacks against China, Russia, and Iran, and then got hit back. This isn't going to hurt Hezbollah (quite the contrary, I imagine) but it will set a dangerous precedent that it's okay to set off bombs indiscriminately in countries you don't like.

In any other context this would be treated as a major terrorist attack by the mainstream press. Followed up with a major air attacks across southern Lebanon killing more civilians. Anything that Hezbollah does in retaliation will of course be treated as a grave breach and “unprovoked”

Really appreciating this episode, Mark and John. @23:09--yep, if I read another pundit talking about how "precisely targeted" these attacks were I may actually snap.

Methinks Perfidious Albion be the culprit.

Isn't this pager-terrorbombing campaign going to be a liability when it's time for the US to join an Israeli war in Lebanon?

Im running a feber at the moment and my brain has decided that Hezbollah are now called Shadow Shia Money Gang

Tooze on RWN needs to happen

Now the stories about the CIA intercepting shipments of computer systems and PROMIS are much more believable